Ozymandias

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

About the author...
Ozymandias is a sonnet written by the
English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe
Shelley. Shelley wrote “Ozymandias” in 1817
as part of a poetry contest with a
friend.The title of “Ozymandias” refers to
an alternate name of the ancient Egyptian
pharaoh Ramses II. In Ozymandias, Shelley
describes a crumbling statue of
Ozymandias as a way to portray the
transience of political power and to praise
art’s power of preserving the past.
4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822
 Ramses II Ozy mandias Ozymandias
(1279 -1213 BC) (Greek Name)
Air Ruler
Now that you understand the meaning of
the title, how powerful do you suppose the
name Ozymandias is?

Write a few sentences in your journal

explaining your point of view.
 Three Interpretations

Critical of King Ozymandias: Critical of

George III Power and decline religion
 Iambic r
o n n et Ozymandias hythm
Ital ia n S
t r a rc h a n )
(Pe Enjambm
Percy Bysshe Shelley - 1792-1822

e p o em ent
1 4 l in I met a traveller from an antique land French:
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
enjambem
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, ent - to
Octave Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, step over
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

(problem) Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, d
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: e
And on the pedestal these words appear: c
l
statue
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
i
Sestet Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
n Extended
e
metaphor
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
(solution) a
caesur
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Line 1: I met a traveller from an antique land’ old
past
ancient

The opening line and half of the poem

introduces two of the poem’s speakers: the “I” achievements
of the poem who meets a traveller, and the
traveller whose words make up the rest of the
poem.

Speaker wants to Emphasis on the

distance himself? unimportance?
 Lines 2-3: Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
The stability is at odds with the
large 1. great power fact that the statue is actually in
enormous 2. Stability; immovable? ruins; trunkless - missing its
torso

relationship between nature and the statue sandstorms and time itself probably caused the statue
to collapse
Line 2 is enjambed. The
Since the statue naturally functions as a description of the legs stretches
symbol of the human culture and power that across two lines, much the way
built it, having it be broken apart by sand
that the legs still stand,
suggests nature’s even greater power, and
mankind’s helplessness in the face of stretching across time from
nature’s indifference. Ozymandias's era until now.

an ellipsis itself is dots separated by

The structure of the poem mirrors and enhances the meaning of its words.
spaces(....), and is therefore reminiscent of
the fragments of the statue that are spread
out on the sand.
 Lines 4-5: Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
Alliteration
an expression often And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
connected to disgust or
scorn. These two lines continue the description of And yet, even so, the parts of the face that
the statue, and continues to juggle the remain are enough to convey realistic facial
themes of: expressions
nature art

On the one hand, the face (or ‘visage’) of the

statue has been damaged by time and nature. Transience of power
(the state or fact of lasting only for a short time)

★ Establishes that the subject of the statue, Ozymandias, was politically powerful, and yet at the same time
the brokenness of the statue emphasizes that such power does not last.

★ Makes clear that nature, in the form of the sands into which the "visage" is half sunk, is what has undone
the statue. Further, because sand is commonly used in hourglasses, the use of sands point also to the role
that time plays in breaking down things of human power.

★ Portrays the way that art can capture and communicate the personality and ruling style of someone
from thousands of years ago.
 ...a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Lines 6-7: Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

Now you try!

1. Highlight words or phrases that you think stand out.

2. From describing the statue, who does the poem shift

the focus to?
3. Do you agree that the phrase ‘passions read’ reveal that the
sculptor does not simply portray Ozymandias's physical
characteristics but has a deeper understanding. Why or why not?
4. What does Shelley achieve by using the word ‘survive’
rather than ‘last’ or ‘endure’?
 Line 8: The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
personification

can refer to creating a design or copy, as in

the sentence can mean "to make fun of" The ‘heart’ can be read as
belonging to Ozymandias,
sculptor made an excellent likeness of by portraying Ozymandias's cruelty so in which case the heart is
Ozymandias vividly, that the sculptor ridicules, or at least feeding Ozymandias's
implicitly critiques, him passions.

Alternatively, the heart

can belong to the
Resonates or echos with
sculptor, in which case
the double meaning of
the sculptor's heart feeds
line 7 ‘which yet survive’
the sculptor's hand—the
heart drives the
sculptor's artistic skill.
Ozymandias's tyrannical passions live on Ozymandias's tyrannical passions, which are
through the art of the statue. portrayed on the statue, continue to survive
among modern humanity.

Warning?
 Lines 9-11 And on the pedestal these words appear: Line 9 explains that not only did some
of the visual artistry of the sculpture
becomes clear that the words 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: survive the ravages of nature and time,
are not the sculptor's, but
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' so too did some words.
rather Ozymandias's own words.

statement is enormously boastful

Iambic rhythm
Legacy: believes that his legacy will outlive him, and that those who see continues like a he is so powerful and accomplished
this statue will also see all of his ‘works’ which can be understood to heart beat that even other powerful and
mean the entire empire over which he rules.
accomplished people will despair if
Political Power: things that can be built with political power, will they try to measure themselves
endure, and that therefore he believes that his own legacy will endure
against him
as well.
His political power could not outlast the ravages of
Q. Why are nature or time.
Ozymandias's His statue is in ruins, which implies that he—who
lines thought all others would quake at his
delightfully memory—has been forgotten.
The art through which he sought to project his
ironic?
power has instead captured his essential cruelty
and vanity.
 The period at the end of the phrase ‘Nothing
beside remains’ creates a caesura in the
middle of line 12, which offers a kind of Verb: to be left behind
moment of silence.
human remains, or a corpse

Lines 12 and 13, which

Lines 12-14: Nothing beside remains. Round the decay describe the desert, are
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare both enjambed—the only
Next level irony! two consecutive
the focus of the poem shifts from the statue itself
The lone and level sands stretch far away." enjambed lines in the
to the land surrounding poem. This stretching of
Alliteration the description of the
as it does, the subject of the poem's irony also shifts. desert across two lines
echoing B's enhances the sense of
perfectly capture an endless
smooth L's, the desert being
Up until this point, the irony in the poem might be desert of flat, shifting sands.
"boundless," since the
described as being a delicious irony, in which the reader hissing S's lines themselves
could enjoy how the arrogant Ozymandias, who was so continue one to the next
certain of his legacy, had in fact been forgotten. without bound.

But as the poem concludes and it becomes clear that

not only was Ozymandias buried by nature and time,
so was the entire empire he once commanded.
 Themes
The Transience of Power and
Man’s Hubris (Main theme)

The Power of Art

Man Versus Nature

The Transience of Power
❖ the ruins of an ancient king’s statue in
a foreign desert

❖ boastful inscription - irony

❖ tyranny now only exists on the face of

a dead and crumbling piece of stone.
❖ both great rulers and their kingdoms will
fall to the sands of time
 The Power of Art

❖ The statue shows the skill of the

sculptor

❖ The fragments interpret and

preserve the king’s personality

❖ The pedestal preserves

Ozymandias’ identity
 Man Versus Nature
❖ the statue is ‘trunkless’ suggests sandstorms eroded the
torso or buried it entirely
❖ the face being ‘shattered’ implies humanity’s relative weakness;
even the destruction of a hulking piece of stone is nothing for
nature
❖ the remains of the statue are ‘half sunk’ under the sand,
evokes a kind of burial.
❖ has become a ‘colossal Wreck’ precisely because of the
relentless forces of sand and wind erosion in the desert
❖ the encroaching sand suggests that nature has steadily overtaken
a once great civilization and buried it